From the Contents of Esoteric Classes

On-line since: 30th May, 2007

EL, Muenchen, 12-5-'07

The mood of one's soul before and after an esoteric class must be
quite different. It's not at all important whether a soul always
remembers what it experienced in an esoteric class, but it must have
the feeling that it took something with it. Just as one knows one's
name, so one must bear what one received in an esoteric class in one's
soul. One knows one's name when one is asked for it, even if one
doesn't always repeat it to oneself. Likewise the stream of esoteric
life must always rest in one's soul. Then esoteric life will deepen
our soul ever more, and that's necessary for the coming time.

Our whole civilization has its origin in the spiritual world. That's
where plans are made that govern our life on the physical plane. Down
here we only see how one event after another takes place according to
physical laws, but the great spiritual causes are hidden from us. It's
events on higher planes of our existence that bring about physical
events. Let's make this quite clear through an example.

An especially important event took place on the astral plane in
November 1879. Since then esoteric life has taken on a quite different
direction. The esoteric stream that lived in mankind since the
14th century was replaced by a new one. Previously all
occult life took place very quietly and hidden from the outer world
under the direction of the archangel Gabriel
(“annunciation”).

Something quite similar to a birth took place on the astral plane in
1879. What had slowly ripened since the 14th century could
now be carried into the world in a freer way, even though only for a
few people. For Gabriel's rule was followed by that of the archangel
Michael. He's the radiant sun that lets esoteric wisdom shine out into
a small host of people. Materialism is included in the divine plan of
creation and it has a purpose in the whole world. But the time has now
come for the esoteric sun to shine brightly under Michael's radiant
direction. For materialism's dark forces are increasing.

Michael's radiant rule will be followed by a dark, terrible age that
starts about 2300. Together with Michael, a dark God has begun his
rule — the God Mammon. For occultism Mammon isn't just the God
of money. He's the leader of all base, black forces. And his hosts
attack men's bodies and souls to corrode and ruin them. There's a lot
of talk about bacterial today, and they influence a lot of things. In
future they'll increase in a terrifying way, and many human bodies
will waste away from terrible diseases and plagues. The brand of sin
will be stamped on men's bodies for all to see. Another archangel
— Oriphiel — will rule then. He must come to shake men up
to their true vocation through terrible tortures. So that this can
happen in the right way a small group of people must be prepared today
to spread esoteric life in the black age 400–600 years from now.

One under Michael's rule who feels the urge to participate in
spiritual life is called upon to serve archangel Michael and to learn
under him so that someday he'll be mature enough to also serve the
terrible Oriphiel in the right way. A sacrifice is demanded from those
who want to dedicate themselves to a higher life. One should only want
to receive spiritual life and experience an awakening if one later
wants to use this to put oneself, one's will and everything one has in
the service of mankind only.

In four to six centuries the small group of men who are being prepared
today will serve the God Oriphiel so that mankind can be saved. If in
that age men wanted to be spiritual leaders who hadn't been prepared
to stand fast in all storms and to resist Mammon's hosts, they
wouldn't be able to serve the God Oriphiel in the right way, and
mankind would not be lifted out of their misery. So in order to do it
we must work very earnestly now to fulfill our tasks then.

But when dark powers rage most terribly, the brightest light also
shines. Oriphiel has ruled before. That was the time when Christ
appeared on earth. Bad powers of degeneration and decadence were
ruling everywhere on earth then. And the human race could only be
shaken higher by terrible means. Oriphiel is called the archangel of
wrath, who purifies mankind with a strong hand.

The story in the Bible where Christ swings a scourge to chase the
money changers out of the temple has a deep meaning. Back when things
were darkest on earth, Christ appeared as the savior of mankind.
Oriphiel's reign ended 109 years after Christ's appearance, and he was
replaced by Anael. Then came Zachariel, then Raphael; Samael ruled
during the Renaissance and Gabriel from the 16th century
until 1879. Then Michael began to rule, and circa 2300 Oriphiel, the
terrible archangel of wrath, will be ruling things. And as once
before, spiritual light will shine into darkness brightly and
radiantly. Christ will appear again on earth, although in a different
form than before. We're called upon to receive him and to serve him.

When you, my sisters and brothers, let the spiritual life that streams
into your soul live in you so that it reverberates in your
meditations, you then have the right fruit. You should let what's
received echo in your meditations. While you do that the spiritual
powers of the world stream into you. The world is always flowed
through by spiritual streams that proceed from the great masters of
wisdom and of the harmony of feelings. The masters continuously pour
streams of love and wisdom over humanity, but men's souls aren't
always ready and open to receive them. But meditation words are magic
words that open soul portals so that divine life can move in. That's
why one shouldn't speculate with one's intellect about meditation
words, but should open the soul for forces that are higher than merely
intellectual ones. If one speculates about them with one's intellect
then only forces that are already in one become active. But higher
forces are supposed to awaken. One shouldn't want to solve riddles in
one's meditation words, one should let them solve riddles, for they're
much wiser than the intellect can ever be. That's why one should let
them work on one and take in what they permit to flow into one's soul,
let them live completely in one's soul.

Meditation words were born from the laws of the spiritual world and
didn't arise through speculation. Something special lives in every
vowel. Each of the vowels has a different sound value. And just as the
soul feels the effect of sounds, so it should devote itself to the
pictures that the words mediate to it. In meditation one should try to
think as concretely as possible, and to be as far away as possible
from abstract ideation.

Let's take a meditation formula that most of you know. In the first
line:

In pure rays of light,

one can imagine something like palely gleaming moonlight that represents
the soft light of the Godhead that flows through creation. This mental
image should live quite clearly and intimately in the soul at the
words:

In pure rays of lightGleams the Godhead of the world.

Then come the lines:

In pure love to all beingsRadiates the godliness of my soul.

Now one tries to permeate soft moonlight completely with one's love,
to pour it into oneself, so that the mild light begins to radiate
through the warmth of one's love, and in the flood of rays one feels
the Godhead glowing in one's soul. In the following words:

I rest in the Godhead of the world,

one tries to imagine that divine-spirit is flowing all around one. One
can feel as if one were in a lukewarm bath, entirely embedded in divine
substance that envelops one's whole being like a mild bath.

I will find myselfIn the Godhead of the world

With these words one can think of a distant light tower that radiates
over to one, and can permeate oneself with the feeling that one will
find one's own self in divine things.

But it's not only the pictures that live in the soul during meditation
that draw us towards the divine and open the soul's portals. A deep
wisdom and a high divine life has also been placed into the vowels. It
makes a difference whether this or that vowel resounds in the soul.
Let's take the vowel i. This always expresses a centralizing, a
striving toward the center. The a means something quite
different. It's an expression of an inner worship of the divine. The
i strives towards the center of the universe, whereas the
a(h) remains distant and bows before the Holiest in devotion.
So if we look at our formula:

In den reinen Strahlen des Lichtes

in the first i the soul
strives towards the divine center, in a it retreats devotedly,
and in the second i it hurries towards the divine again. In the
second line we have the ae:

Erglaenzt die Gottheit der Welt.

The ae represents a weakened ah. The worshipful
devotion of the ah changes in ae to shy reverence. In
holy, shy reverence a man doesn't dare to approach God. But in the
following o the soul hurries to embrace the divine completely
with sacred love and intimacy. The o always expresses an
embracing that is full of love. The following line:

In der reinen Liebe zu allen Wesen,

the i again leads the soul directly
into the divine center. Then in ah of

Erstrahlt die Goettlichkeit meiner Seele,

the soul again becomes devotion
completely. And just as the shy reverence of ae in the second
line changed into an intimate embracing of the divine, so in the fourth
line the full, warm worshipping of the ah weakens into a shy
wanting to embrace that hardly dares to touch the Godhead in oe.
In the fifth line,

Ich ruhe in der Gottheit der Welt

the u predominates. This always expresses a resting, a being embedded.
Now the soul has been fused with the divine in blessed quiet. In the last
two lines,

Ich werde mich selbst finden
In der Gottheit der Welt,

the soul is led (i) ever deeper into the center of the world.

This is just one way of understanding the formula, and one small part
of the deep wisdom that rests in it. It would be confusing if I wanted
to tell you all the deep secrets that are hidden in it. There's no
letter and no sign in it that doesn't have a deep, deep meaning.
That's the way the divine word of creation resounded when it once let
the universe arise. You once heard it sounding, but your souls weren't
aware of it yet. At that time you descended from the spirit, and
you'll go back there in full consciousness. Born out of the spirit,
living in an earthly body, you'll return to the divine spirit of the
world through the power of the spirit.